INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON “ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE CULTURE, RESISTANCE AND ETHICS”

Concept Note
“Environmental Justice initiatives specifically attempt to redress the disproportionate incidence of environmental contamination in communities of the poor and/or communities of colour, to secure for those affected the right to live unthreatened by the risks posed by environmental degradation and contamination, and to afford equal access to natural resources that sustain life and culture.” – Joni Adamson, Mei Mei Evans & Rachel Stein, Introduction to The Environmental Justice Reader: Politics, Poetics, & Pedagogy

Discoursing the politics of environmental justice, Gordon Walker asks two primary questions: “Are the benefits of access to green space for all, or only for some? Do powerful voices dominate environmental decisions to the exclusion of others?” Both the questions would lead to a unanimous answer “yes” as the environment should be accessed by all people and decisions should not favour one or a few communities. There are number of environmental issues that we could identify locally and globally. If we analyse these issues we would realise that the basis of all these issues is denial of rights/access to their respective environments. Thus environmental justice is not merely an environmental problem; it is also a social, political, cultural and economic problem. To take the discussion further we might want to ask pertinent questions as: “Is it just to serve a single justice to all ecocultures, considering the peculiarities and cultural differences of cultural communities? Are some communities often deprived of their environmental rights?” These questions would initiate discussions on diversity, naturecultures, and peculiarities of every cultural community. David Schlosberg’s words―Cultural recognition is central in the struggle for environmental justice―are particularly relevant in this context. The conference aims to recognize ecological spaces denied to cultural communities across the world and theorize them by understanding the ethics, justices and injustices involved. The conference will be a pioneering one in the academic area of Environmental Justice in India. The conference will create scholarship in all disciplines which will be a collective and collaborative effort. This discourse will encourage researchers and scholars to work in this upcoming and most relevant area and would help them launch courses and programmes.